Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-As-Sir-Lancelot.
Who had nearly fought the Dragon of Angnor.
Who had almost stood up to the vicious Chicken of Bristol.
And who had personally wet himself, at the Battle of Badon Hill.

On a less silly note. So would going fiber actually make a difference for stuff like Steam? Or are we looking at hardware bottlenecks on the router and pc side.

Likely going to be hit all the way along that string, from your pc to home equipment to every hop along the way and then whatever content server you're downloading from and it's capabilities/utilization.

I don't see why people are excited. Meanwhile 1 gb/s sounds good, in reality you will always have less than that. Most sites have upper limit on at what speed you can download from them, and unless you extensively use torrents to download something big on constant basis, that 1 GB/s is really useless to most users. Also not sure about other countries, but in my country 70 USD a month for internet sounds like a lot.

When people say Sweden has comparable speeds or Korea has superior speeds at lower prices, they seem to be forgetting that internet infrastructure is no longer subsidized by the US government. There's nothing that makes internet cheaper in Sweden or Korea. Simply subsidized by taxes.

When people say Sweden has comparable speeds or Korea has superior speeds at lower prices, they seem to be forgetting that internet infrastructure is no longer subsidized by the US government. There's nothing that makes internet cheaper in Sweden or Korea. Simply subsidized by taxes.

As far as I'm aware no government subsidies (unless you count certain protections from outside competition) exist in Finland for internet infrastructure - except for areas in the far periphery (which I don't particularly support). Yet I'm able to purchase 100mb/s internet for 15€/month.

When people say Sweden has comparable speeds or Korea has superior speeds at lower prices, they seem to be forgetting that internet infrastructure is no longer subsidized by the US government. There's nothing that makes internet cheaper in Sweden or Korea. Simply subsidized by taxes.

Not sure you can say the US got comparable speeds, the coverage of high speeds here seems to be well beyond that of the USA, but you strike an important point Laize. The coverage of rural areas here have a lot to do with that(about the size of California but with 9 million people) but you still got high speed internet almost everywhere, maybe some remote mountain peak in the northwest lacks coverage! :P

There was a good article serie in the NYT about it.

Here is a snippet.

The short answer is that broadband deployment in those countries was spurred by a combination of heavy government involvement, subsidies and lower corporate profits that may be tough for the economic and political system in the United States to accept.

...

Sweden has built one of the fastest and most widely deployed broadband networks in Europe because its government granted tax breaks for infrastructure investments, directly subsidized rural deployment, and, perhaps most significantly, required state-owned municipal utilities to create local backbone networks, reducing the cost for the local telephone company to provide service.

Japan let telecommunications companies write down about one-third of their investment in broadband the first year, rather than the usual policy, which requires them to spread the deductions over 22 years. The Japanese government also subsidized low-cost loans for broadband construction and paid for part of the wiring of rural areas.

...

In many countries, especially in Asia, government assistance has gone hand in hand with an expectation that private companies will accept lower profit margins in order to assist in achieving the national broadband goals.

“The South Korean government expects its private companies to drive the investment in broadband infrastructure with government support in the form of loans and tax subsidies as their incentive,” wrote the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in a report last year.

The nerve is called the "nerve of awareness". You cant dissect it. Its a current that runs up the center of your spine. I dont know if any of you have sat down, crossed your legs, smoked DMT, and watch what happens... but what happens to me is this big thing goes RRRRRRRRRAAAAAWWW! up my spine and flashes in my brain... well apparently thats whats going to happen if I do this stuff...

Nah I know what you mean. I think people living out on the countryside are supportive of such subsidies though!

The nerve is called the "nerve of awareness". You cant dissect it. Its a current that runs up the center of your spine. I dont know if any of you have sat down, crossed your legs, smoked DMT, and watch what happens... but what happens to me is this big thing goes RRRRRRRRRAAAAAWWW! up my spine and flashes in my brain... well apparently thats whats going to happen if I do this stuff...

Not sure you can say the US got comparable speeds, the coverage of high speeds here seems to be well beyond that of the USA, but you strike an important point Laize. The coverage of rural areas here have a lot to do with that(about the size of California but with 9 million people) but you still got high speed internet almost everywhere, maybe some remote mountain peak in the northwest lacks coverage! :P

There was a good article serie in the NYT about it.

Here is a snippet.

In fairness, the more densely populated areas of the United States have comparable speeds to anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, however, it's not profitable for companies to expand fiber coverage to more rural areas.

Google has a rather interesting take on this. Rather than concentrating on the profitability of providing internet service, they're concentrating on the profitability of internet users. Think of it like an oil company that lays out a large one-time expense to buy 1 million cars for people. Yeah it's expensive, but now that's 1 million extra cars on the road buying their gasoline until those cars die a decade or more down the line. Same thing in this instance.

Fiber happens to be low maintenance (No corrosion as opposed to copper full duplex cable), extremely quick and practically ubiquitous in the US even if you don't realize it. It seems like most of the hard work is already done.

Based on their development of Android, this seems to be the exact same strategy. More internet users with higher quality internet means more searches, gmail users and other Google service providers. That's not even taking into consideration the tremendous amount of goodwill generated.

Not to mention one step outside these rural areas and their speed drops dramatically. The reason other countries do so well is that they don't charge an arm and a leg for internet, they just charge you for bandwidth caps.

"I have gigabit internet in my countryhouse trying to access a megabit sever in the big city on the other side of the continent! Why can't I download faster!"

In fairness, the more densely populated areas of the United States have comparable speeds to anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, however, it's not profitable for companies to expand fiber coverage to more rural areas.

It's worth considering that it may infact be beneficial for society at large to not provide expensive internet infrastructure to remote areas.

In fairness, the more densely populated areas of the United States have comparable speeds to anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, however, it's not profitable for companies to expand fiber coverage to more rural areas.

Google has a rather interesting take on this. Rather than concentrating on the profitability of providing internet service, they're concentrating on the profitability of internet users. Think of it like an oil company that lays out a large one-time expense to buy 1 million cars for people. Yeah it's expensive, but now that's 1 million extra cars on the road buying their gasoline until those cars die a decade or more down the line. Same thing in this instance.

Fiber happens to be low maintenance (No corrosion as opposed to copper full duplex cable), extremely quick and practically ubiquitous in the US even if you don't realize it. It seems like most of the hard work is already done.

Based on their development of Android, this seems to be the exact same strategy. More internet users with higher quality internet means more searches, gmail users and other Google service providers. That's not even taking into consideration the tremendous amount of goodwill generated.

Google is probably the most loved company on Earth right now.

They're geniuses at work over there.

Yeah I know, I got much love for Google. They got some brilliant minds over there.
How much do you pay for high speed in your hood? Thats another concern I got, it seems rather high on average. The 1gb/s Google deal is fine(quite comparable to the prices I've seen here with a couple of exceptions), but otherwise?

The nerve is called the "nerve of awareness". You cant dissect it. Its a current that runs up the center of your spine. I dont know if any of you have sat down, crossed your legs, smoked DMT, and watch what happens... but what happens to me is this big thing goes RRRRRRRRRAAAAAWWW! up my spine and flashes in my brain... well apparently thats whats going to happen if I do this stuff...

Yeah I know, I got much love for Google. They got some brilliant minds over there.
How much do you pay for high speed in your hood? Thats another concern I got, it seems rather high on average. The 1gb/s Google deal is fine(quite comparable to the prices I've seen here with a couple of exceptions), but otherwise?